What do you do?
We offer full holistic financial planning support, covering every stage of the financial planning process. Reports and suitability letters are the end product, but you’ll get far more than that.
We’re not just order takers. We’re confident enough to offer a second opinion or a challenge where it’s appropriate. We work with you, not for you.
That’s the benefit of 25+ years of experience, a huge amount of study, and a good grounding in some of the best lifestyle financial planning businesses.
Think of us as part of your business, without the extra costs and hassle of employment.
How do you charge?
For the first few months we operate menu-based pricing, you can find our fee schedule here. After the initial trial period, we can agree an appropriate retainer or fixed fee if that works better for you and your cashflow.
Whatever pricing structure you’re on, invoices for work completed are sent out on the 1st of every month (or the previous working day if it falls on a weekend).
How do I submit work to you?
We provide you with an an online submission form, which includes a secure upload link. This link is to a sharepoint folder that only we have access to. We’ll also give you access to a joint sharepoint folder to share files after the initial submission.
It can also be helpful if we have third-party access to some of the software you use, such as platforms or cashflow forecasting. We’ll discuss this with you before we start working together.
What systems, tools, and software are you familiar with?
We’re most familiar with Transact, Voyant and intelligent office, but we’ve used many of the major software tools used in the profession. Of the ones we haven’t used, none are so different that we won’t be able to pick them up quickly.
The software packages we subscribe to are dictated by demand and the software you already use. Speak to us to find out more about this.
What’s your turnaround time?
Standard turnaround times will be within 10 working days of a completed submission. If anything is genuinely urgent, please contact me and I’ll confirm how soon I can realistically turn it round for you.
How do you ensure the quality and accuracy of your reports?
You share the responsibility on this one. If you send good quality client data (i.e. everything you would need to do the work yourself), you’ll get good quality, accurate, client focused outputs. If you can also send the recording and transcript of a client meeting, you’ll notice the difference in what you get back.
If the quality of the information you send is poor, you can’t expect good quality in return.
We check all of our work carefully before returning it to you, as well as running it through a secure AI system to pick up any errors or inconsistencies not spotted by the human eye.
What happens if I’m not satisfied with the work you produce?
I’m confident you will be, but if not, we’ll work together to create something you are happy with.
If you’re still not happy, the chances are it’s just not a good fit. You can cancel the agreement with 31 days’ notice.
Will I have to spend a lot of time editing the reports you produce?
You shouldn’t have to; they should be client ready. If it’s more of a style preference, We’ll soon learn your preferences and apply them to your reports.
You may find that you need to edit the first one or two reports as we get used to each other, but the long-term measure of our success will be how little time you’ll need to spend doing this.
Can you work with my own templates rather than a one-size-fits-all template?
Yes, no problem. We’re also happy to offer suggestions about how your templates can be improved if that’s something you’re interested in.
How secure is the data I share with you, and how do you protect client confidentiality?
We work on a bitlocked laptop with 2-factor authentication. All documents are shared via shared folders in Microsoft Sharepoint. Nobody else has access to them other than you or us, and no client data leaves our Microsoft ecosystem without your prior agreement.
We operate on Microsoft Business Premium subscription, which gives the highest level of data security and encryption.
How do you deal with capacity issues – what if your workload is high when I need something quickly?
We’re only taking on a limited number of clients, so we don’t anticipate it being a problem.
We can always make allowances, but if you’re regularly asking for urgent work then we probably need to discuss if it really is urgent, and why.
Who is responsible for the advice?
You are. We are not regulated advisers, but we still carry the responsibility to produce good quality, compliant work which you’ll be happy with and helps you meet your compliance obligations.
How do you maintain consistency in tone, structure, and client-facing materials to match my brand?
We’ll ask for examples of your client-facing materials so we can get a feel for your tone of voice as well as your brand. We have our own style of communication developed through years of experience working in lifestyle financial planning businesses. This is well received by most clients and lands much better than any generic report writing software outputs, but we can still mould it to your own style.
Do you use AI?
Yes we do, mainly for a steer on research, productivity and for quality checking outputs. We’re actively exploring ways in which we can help you use AI to make efficiencies and improve the client experience.
We don’t allow it to do our thinking, and everything that is generated by AI is verified. We’ve seen some of the outputs from AI generated suitability reports and they’re not pretty.
We never enter client data on to public AI models. We use Microsoft CoPilot for client data as it sits within our Microsoft 365 Premium subscription. Client data never leaves our Microsoft eco-system, so is NOT used to train public AI models.
We don’t enter client data into any other AI model, as they simply don’t have the same level of data security as Microsoft CoPilot.
Can you support me with more complex cases or holistic planning rather than just transactional reports?
Yes, that’s exactly what we’re here for. Our founder, Gareth, is CFP qualified, so well versed in holistic financial planning. A transactional relationship isn’t really our thing, although we accept there will be times when you just need something writing up.
How do you keep up to date with regulatory changes and developments in financial planning?
Gareth is a member of various financial planning and paraplanning communities. as well as being a member of the CISI, so just like needs to maintain a CPD record. He’s also endlessly curious.
Why should I work with you?
First of all, to save hours of time having someone else do something you don’t enjoy doing so much. But there’s a bit more to it than that.
We only work with true, “full fat” lifestyle financial planners. This isn’t just a transactional relationship, we have to get on. We want you to feel like we’re part of your business.
If you want someone who has 25+ years of experience, is CFP qualified, technically excellent, commercially aware and a good communicator, that doesn’t normally come cheap. The pricetag to employ someone like that is usually upwards of £50,000. And that’s just the salary.
If you want all that, but you don’t want to pay all that – that’s why you should work with us.
And why shouldn’t I just use AI for my paraplanning?
For the same reason you don’t want your clients “just using AI” to do their own financial planning.
Can I trial your service on a single case before committing to anything ongoing?
Of course you can. Get in touch for more details.
I’m interested, how do I get started?
Book a discovery call here. We look forward to chatting with you!
